Brexit backlash: Searches for UK jobs drops

The number of EU workers actively searching for jobs in the UK has dropped by 11.4 percent since the referendum. The UK jobs market that employed 2.35 million EU nationals in 2017 has seen the biggest backlash from Romanian job seekers, with Romanian search traffic to UK jobs dropping by 52 percent, followed closely by Portugal (42 percent) and Poland (35 percent).
recruitment

The number of EU workers actively searching for jobs in the UK has dropped by 11.4 percent[1] since the referendum, according to new data from Monster.co.uk Contributor Sinead Bunting, VP Marketing Europe – Monster.co.uk

The UK jobs market that employed 2.35 million EU nationals in 2017[2] has seen the biggest backlash from Romanian job seekers, with Romanian search traffic to UK jobs dropping by 52 percent, followed closely by Portugal (42 percent) and Poland (35 percent).

Country

Drop in searches from EU locations

Romania

52.05 percent

Portugal

41.77 percent

Poland

34.59 percent

Spain

26.54 percent

Greece

25.46 percent

Belgium

21.37 percent

Slovakia

21.15 percent

Bulgaria

20.85 percent

France

20.58 percent

Slovenia

18.15 percent

The data also reinforces skills shortage concerns for important sectors in the UK, with IT and engineering amongst the top 10 job categories receiving fewer searches from EU countries

Job Category

Drop in searches from EU locations

Business/Strategic Management

24.86 percent

Sales/Business Development

21.72 percent

Legal

21.23 percent

Accounting/Finance

21.18 percent

Customer Support/Client Care

20.81 percent

Editorial/Writing

17.57 percent

IT/Software Development

17.27 percent

Administrative/Clerical

16.44 percent

Building Construction/Skilled Trades

14.41 percent

Engineering

13.75 percent

It’s not all bad news however, Monster.co.uk is still seeing healthy interest from UK job seekers who make up 80 percent of all traffic to the site. The data also shows British businesses have seen some EU countries showing increased interest for UK jobs – Germany (1 percent), Finland (18 percent) and Sweden (20 percent)[5]. Searches from outside EU countries have also risen with the US, India and the Philippines leading the surge[6]. Those looking for roles have driven an uplift in searches for skills categories including Medical/Health (1 percent), Marketing (8 percent) and Security (14 percent) roles.[7]

The need for certain skills from UK businesses is increasing with the number of engineering jobs posted on Monster.co.uk rising proportionally by 11.2 percent. Demand for roles in Customer Support/Client Care also proportionally by 11.3 percent, followed by Building Construction/Skilled Trades (3.13 percent), Business/Strategic Management (4.3 percent) and Biotech/R&D/Science (18.1 percent).

Sinead Bunting, VP Marketing Europe, Monster.co.uk, said, “While the proportion of international traffic from outside the EU has increased, a fall in active searches from EU Countries in the wake of the referendum threatens to leave UK businesses unable to fill critical skilled roles. And things could get even more challenging.

“While no one knows for sure what kind of deal the UK will get as it exits the EU, it seems certain we will end up with controlled movement of EU workers, further restricting the supply of labour against a background of rising vacancies and full employment. To counter this, successful companies must focus recruitment efforts on passive job seekers – those not actively looking.

“In the past targeting passive job seekers at scale has been very difficult to do, and costly, our technology-driven digital first approach makes a massive difference. At Monster, we recently launched Power Job Ads app to target people within their everyday lives across Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, as well as lifestyle and news sites. We’re already seeing a conversion rate two to three times higher than traditional job ads.”

[1] Monster data – monthly visitors based in EU pre and post referendum (June 2015 – June 2017)

[2] ONS data – UK and non-UK people in the labour market: February 2018

[3] Fig 1 – Monster data – comparison between active job searches by country pre and post referendum (June 2015 – June 2017)

 

Read more

Latest News

Read More

The evolving leadership persona

6 December 2024

Newsletter

Receive the latest HR news and strategic content

Please note, as per the GDPR Legislation, we need to ensure you are ‘Opted In’ to receive updates from ‘theHRDIRECTOR’. We will NEVER sell, rent, share or give away your data to third parties. We only use it to send information about our products and updates within the HR space To see our Privacy Policy – click here

Latest HR Jobs

University of Glasgow – Estates DirectorateSalary: £40,247 to £45,163 per annum. UofG Grade 7

Join Sage as our Director of HR – Mergers & Acquisitions, a high-visibility role where you’ll lead M&A efforts for the People Function—from due diligence

HR Director – Mergers & Acquisitions Join Sage as our Director of HR – Mergers & Acquisitions, a high-visibility role where you’ll lead M&A efforts

University of Oxford – Department of International DevelopmentSalary: £31,459 to £36,616 per annum. Grade 5

Read the latest digital issue of theHRDIRECTOR for FREE

Read the latest digital issue of theHRDIRECTOR for FREE